Sediment Trap and ²³⁴Th methods for Particulate Organic Carbon Export in the upper ocean: Current Status

Annual report- 2002

2002 Activities

SCOR WG 116 met for the first time in Amsterdam on July 8-10, 2001. Unfortunately, due to a lack of financial support from SCOR, we were unable to meet during 2002 as proposed in our last annual report. However, we still maintained communication via email and continue progress on action items identified at our first meeting, including:

1. Production of web based bibliography-

We have collected and continue to add to a bibliography of relevant literature on the WG theme. There are over 100 references available as part of this bibliography. This reference list is deemed important to share efficiently among our group and the larger community the complete range of studies on upper ocean export, some of which are difficult to trace, as they include non-western and gray literature sources. This bibliography as well as other WG materials, reports and individual publications, can be found on our SCOR WG 116 web site

http://usjgofs.whoi.edu/mzweb/scorwg116/index.htm

2. Participation in other WG relevant meetings-

It was noted that in 2002, there were two other relevant meetings to our WG theme. We are fortunate that WG116 members were able to attend both meetings, and we expect that the reports from these gatherings and attendance by our group will strengthen our understanding of the WG theme and that reports of these meetings back to others in our group will be part of our next WG gathering in 2003. The two meetings were-

a. US JGOFS SMP “Twilight Zone” meeting chaired by Dr. George Jackson (March 25-27, San Antonio, Texas) attended by Avan Antia from WG 116. http://usjgofs.whoi.edu/mzweb/midwater.html

b. JGOFS/IGBP/GAIM workshop on “Global Ocean Productivity and the Fluxes of Carbon and Nutrients: Combining Observations and Models” hosted by Drs. R. Schlitzer, P. Monfray, N. Hoepffner (June 24-27, 2002, Ispra, Italy) attended by Ken Buesseler, Debbie Steinberg and Tom Trull from WG116. http://www.me.sai.jrc.it/jgofs

3. Individual projects by WG members relevant to our theme continue. As noted in our last annual report, these efforts included in 2002 the seeking of additional resources to conduct relevant field studies that we feel are needed to make advances in this area. Possibilities in 2003 and beyond include projects led by Dr. S. Fowler at the DYFAMED site off France, and a pending project by Drs. Buesseler, Steinberg and Trull for work at the VERTEX site off California and in the Southern Ocean. Whether or not our WG actively joins in any one of these or other efforts is still an open question, contingent in large part upon ship and sampling opportunities on these cruises. It may or may not be possible to meet as a WG in conjunction with such a field effort to encourage active participation, and we may simply use a future WG meeting to discuss individual results from these and other ongoing efforts.

4. A report in EOS proposed last year from our WG has been put on hold until our 2nd meeting is arranged and we have clearer picture of WG activities that will be possible within the SCOR supported meeting and individual research projects.

2003 meeting plans

We had planned a meeting in Monaco in 2002 in conjunction with an international meeting and near the site where Dr. Fowler’s DYFAMED work is conducted. This meeting was not supported by SCOR and we are not able to identify a similar international meeting in 2003 that is specifically relevant to our theme and thus a site were our WG members and other interested scientists would be gathering in any case. As such, we solicited a host site from WG members and we are very pleased to report that our Chinese WG member Dr. Min Chen has agreed to host our WG in Xiamen, China in May 2003. Facilities are available at his University for the meeting and local housing can be arranged. Dr. Buesseler has visited the site in 2001, in conjunction with a lecture series he gave in China that was hosted by Dr. Minhan Dai, who is associate dean at Xiamen University and also an expert on this WG topic.

We plan to use this meeting to review progress since 2001 and to arrange and begin writing assignments for our final report/meeting. By this time, we should be aware if any of the field opportunities identified earlier for WG member participation are a viable option for encouragement of a WG 116 field based component in 2003 and beyond. A more detailed meeting plan will be discussed in 2002 once we have a firm date and support from SCOR to proceed with this plan. We are proposing a 4 day format as before during a week in the second half of May in 2003.

Since 3 of our WG members are from Asia (Drs. Chen, Wei and Harada) as well as our SCOR observer, Dr. Tsunogai, it seems appropriate to gather in China to encourage active participation by local scientists and highlight regional studies in this region. We also intend to encourage WG members to present talks- perhaps before/after our official WG meeting- to local students and scientists as a way of encouraging future collaboration between the host country, China and those Institutions represented by our WG.

Due to low local costs for hotel/meals and the fact that many in our group are in close proximity to China, travel expenses for our WG members and the meeting budget are lower overall than required for our prior proposal in 2002 as detailed in the attached table.